What is Return to Player (RTP), and Hit Frequency mean?

Return to Player (RTP) and Hit Frequency: What Are These mean?

RETURN TO PLAYER

The phrase "Return to Player" (RTP), is used by casinos to describe the percentage of wagered cash that the slot machine or VLT will pay to players over time. If you place 100 $1 bets on a machine with a RTP of 90 percent, you can expect to win about 90 dollars in winnings. Both RTP as well as house edge are usually calculated over the longer term. It's entirely possible for nearly anything to happen in the short-term (see Short Term Volatility and Long Term Predictability) This is why it's essential to bet only using money that you're willing to lose.

RTP is actually the opposite of house advantage. A machine with an advantage of 20% over house will have an RTP average of 80%. This means that the machine can keep 20% of the bets and then return the remaining percent to players with wins.

Hit Frequency

Hit frequency is the name employed by casinos to define the frequency that machines stop when it hits a winning combination. Hit frequency of 8% means that the machine will stop whenever it comes across a winning combination approximately 88% of the time. Not to be overlooked, the majority of VLTs and slots offer players to wager on multiple lines simultaneously. A player can get one to three winning combinations in one spin. There may also be many losing combinations. While it might appear that the player is winning more often than normal but the probability of losing combinations over time will be far more.

There can be a wide spectrum of hit frequency between slot machines and VLTs. While some slots might have a hit percentage of 3%, others such as video poker can have a hit rate that is close to 45%. Although the hit rate of video poker may sound appealing, remember that nearly half of these "hits" are just a return on his original wager. Although a video poker machine with a hit frequency of 3 percent may not sound appealing, it may allow players to win a huge jackpot. Machines with large progressive jackpots have a lower frequency of hitting however they have larger jackpots.

Games with low hit rates are often perceived by players as "tight" because the winners can be so far apart, while games with frequent hits are often perceived to be "loose" because they have numerous small wins.

Remember, the frequency of a hit is the average number of times a winning combination occurs. return to player % Return-to-player" is the percent or the amount that a machine will return over time.